


there's no hand on the reign

by merriell



Series: untitled kwaf spinoff [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: First Meetings, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-26
Updated: 2019-06-26
Packaged: 2020-05-19 22:22:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19365037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/merriell/pseuds/merriell
Summary: SWISS, 1992. Céleste met Oliver in elemental magic class, and the rest was history.





	there's no hand on the reign

BEAU SOLEIL, SWISS, 1992

She had been born as Céleste Gervaise, but she had _chosen_ Lessie.

Over the years, she discovered that she had a way of getting what she wanted, even if odds were stacked against her. There were people who had the power of persuasion by sculpting others’ energy into their creation. However, there was no magic in hers. She was just very, _very_ good with people.

Beau Soleil had been the choice their father made for Elias because it simply was necessary. Elias was the heir of Macaulay Apothecary, after all, and what was public school with tired, underpaid teachers against a private, elite boarding school with facility rivaling any university in the world? Elias was gone from the house when he was old enough. Gone with a smile, patting her head and telling her that he’ll be back.

Lessie had no interest in waiting. She persuaded her mother, then her father, filled in the tests and paperwork, charmed the counselor and the chancellor until her name was written down. Before she knew it, she was packing her bags two years after Elias’ departure when it should have been five.

Céleste arrived at Beau Soleil three years younger than their classmates. There were basic, common subjects, the material more intricate than any school that was in par with them, but there were specializations—the kind of course you applied to before the school year started—and the one that Lessie chosen was Elemental Magic simply for the reason she didn’t have the attention for Binding and she was deemed too young for Potions. (They would allow her to take Potions next year.)

That noon, she was late to class. She lingered at the History class because she knew Eli was going to come to the same class, and lingered slightly more to be introduced with Eli’s friends. Her legs hurried on the long corridors while she cursed inside, _why the hell does the elemental magic class need to be in different wing than the previous one?!_ Though she did not regret the time she spent waiting for Eli.

She slid the door open loudly. The whole class stared at her with a raised brow. Being late was not proper nor lady-like, after all, and Beau Soleil had Advanced Manners as one of the compulsory classes.

“Tardy in your first session, Miss Macaulay,” the teacher, a gruffy looking English man with dark skin remarked as he looked down at his paper.

“Please forgive me, Mr. Bhasin,” she curtsied, “I’m afraid I got lost.”

“It’s alright,” Kanta Bhasin smiled at her. “Go to your next class with a friend next time, Miss Macaulay, other teachers would not be as agreeable as me.”

Of course, she had been _smart_. There were two of eight classes where she could meet Eli. She had specifically chosen this one to be late to because he knew Bhasin was known to be kind.

She made her way to the only empty seat in the room. Beside her was a young man, older than her, bones jutting out from under his pale skin, peering over excitedly as Bhasin started the lecture. Lessie glanced at him, his golden eyes practically _sparkling_. She regarded him as a person who actually had interest in elemental magic.

She giggled, and he glanced at her. Lessie, as always, smiled radiantly.

“I’m Céleste Macaulay,” she whispered.

He raised a brow at her. For a second, she thought he would be unfriendly. Then he smiled back at her and replied, “Thaddeus Foley-Melville.”

“What a complicated name.”

“My friends call me Oliver.”

“People I like call me Lessie,” she replied, holding out her hand.

He took it. “It’s very nice to meet you, Lessie,” his fingers were warm, but Lessie had been hit with a vision of fire, a fire that barely contained inside his body, a _fire_ that was him. She pulled away after a few seconds.

Her persuasion might had not been magic. Although she _did_ have other talents.

“Lovely fire, Oliver,” she remarked, more to herself than him, before deciding that they would be _good_ friends.

 

*

 

“I found someone interesting,” Lessie brought it up over tea, right after she put down the scone she had been nibbling. “I think you’ll like him.”

Beau Soleil might have been a school with strict standards in education, but it also found itself to agreeing that their students might keep their weekends full with whatever extracurricular activity they intend to do, as long as they applied the right forms to the school assistant. The Macaulays tend to choose afternoon tea as an activity.

“Yeah?” Elias had brought friends over, the kind that she didn’t approve of but Elias loved, the kind with family rumors they struggled to hide behind their backs. Eli had fascination with lonely people, Lessie found over the years. It might have something to do to the fact that _they_ were lonely people.

“I invited him over for tea.”

“You _did_?”

“What?” She gestured at his friends, who was smoking at the opened window. Cigarettes were contraband, but everyone who walked inside these walls had rich families that had _ways_ of distributing goods to their children, and it was free time, anyway, the school security probably smoking at the edge of the garden themselves. “You brought over some of your friends to our tea.”

“You met them before,” he had pouted, as if it had an effect in Lessie.

“Relax. I told you, you’ll like him. He’s in my elemental magic class, and I’ve done some digging on his backstory—“ she had been exaggerating, of course, all she’d done was ask around to _her_ friends about what sort of family Foley-Melville was. “He’s English, he has strict parents, he’s a lonely child...”

Eli feigned interest in the biscuits. “Should we ask Mother for more for our next tea?”

“He almost burned down his family mansion because he was playing with fire.”

She stared as Eli looked up, theatrically, because he always _does_. “What kind of fire?”

“Well, we’re in elemental magic class.”

He squinted at her. “How do you even find him?”

She smiled teasingly at Eli. “How do you even find _them_?” Gesturing vaguely at his friends, she took another sip of her English breakfast with a giggle.

“Fair point.”

It took half an hour through their tea, their snacks almost running out, for Oliver to come. The door slid open and he stared at them with the kind of nervous energy that raged against the easy air of the room. Both Lessie and Eli glanced over before glancing back at each other, Lessie with a scoff and Eli with a grin.

“C’mere, Oliver!” She pulled up a chair and gestured Oliver to sit on it. He complied while glancing hurriedly between them and Eli’s friends who then was chatting about girls in their class. “I told you you should meet my brother. This is Elias Macaulay. You can call him Eli.”

“Oliver... Oliver Foley,” Oliver smiled at Eli. Skipped the ‘Thaddeus’, she mused.

“Nice to meet you, Oliver. Our names had a ring to it, eh? All have ‘L’s and stuff.”

Oliver raised a brow, but his stare had been fixed to Eli. “You’re... yeah. We do, don’t we?” He glanced at the tea-set in front of them. Smoothly, Eli poured down a cup for Oliver before serving it in front of him. He took it with a smile, a smile that lit up his eyes, something not quite innocent but also guarded, as if hiding something beneath.

Lessie, amusedly, watched over them like an angel as they started talking about tea. See, she had decided they would be good friends, and she always, _always_ , get what she wanted.


End file.
